


Watch the Queen Conquer

by Crait



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Battle Couple, Duty, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-14 00:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crait/pseuds/Crait
Summary: Two years after the Promised Day, an unknown enemy targets Roy Mustang. His only counter? Riza Hawkeye.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a minute and a half since I last read the manga, so apologies for any inaccuracies! Inspiration for this plot was lifted from _The Beekeeper's Apprentice_ by Laurie R. King, because the last time I read it, my brain drew a line between two sets of chess motifs. Any specific beats borrowed from the same will be listed at the end of each chapter. Title courtesy of Nicki Minaj.
> 
> End credits, begin story.

"If you're going to reassure me that it wasn't my fault and say that I mustn't feel guilty about it, Holmes, I'd rather you left, because that really would finish us off, truly it would."

"No, Russ, I wasn't about to say that. Give me some credit, I beg you. Of course you killed them. It was not murder, or even manslaughter, but you are certainly guilty of provoking a fatal accident. That will remain on your hands."

I could not believe what I was hearing. I took my arm away and looked at him then, and saw in his face a mirror image of the pain I could feel on my own, only in his case the rawness of it was smoothed over, soothed by wisdom and years.

"I was merely going to say that I hope you realise that guilt is a poor foundation for a life, without other motivations beside it."

— _Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice_

Hawkeye had spent most of the morning getting Fuery's replacement settled in. Their communications officer and his expertise were on temporary loan elsewhere, and the general had borrowed a sergeant from Eastern's intelligence division to fill in the gap for the next couple of months. Unstated was that this was also the sergeant's audition—she was young but brilliant, with a talent for cryptography and code-breaking that had caught the general's eye.

And not that Hawkeye would ever say it within earshot of Fuery, but it _would_ be nice to have more women on the staff. Much as she appreciated the unexclusionary camaraderie of the general's men, the sheer maleness was sometimes a bit much. That Sergeant Kohler appeared every bit as competent as her reputation suggested and was easily as tall as Havoc to boot only recommended her further. There was something about the way she stared down her nose at the suggestion of antics that Hawkeye appreciated.

"That should be enough to get you started," Hawkeye said, "but please ask if you have any questions."

"Of course, Captain," said Kohler. "If you don't mind, I'd like to review all this"—there was a small mountain of files on her desk, most of them hastily put together by Fuery before his departure—"and then maybe I could ask you a couple of things about which take priority?"

"Absolutely," Hawkeye said. "I have a meeting this afternoon, but I'm available before or after, and Lieutenant Havoc will be around if you need anything in the meantime." 

"Aw, Hawkeye, come on—"

"Were you volunteering to accompany the general?"

"Sure," Havoc said. "Following him around is at least gonna be more interesting than babysitting."

On the other side of the table, Breda smirked. "Sure about that, Havoc? Because I hear Major General Martin is part of today's meet-and-greet."

"What, that old bastard? Seriously? What the hell is he doing here?"

"The major general is interested in our reconstruction efforts," Hawkeye said. Which sounded a lot better than "The major general, a known nationalist, thinks General Mustang is spending too much money on Ishval," but everyone except Sergeant Kohler picked up on the subtext. 

"Uh, yeah, I'll pass," said Havoc, who not only had zero patience for Martin but had actually once been written up for subordination by the man. "Kohler, right? You and I will get along great."

There was a hint of a smile playing around Kohler's mouth that suggested she wasn't as strongly opposed to antics as first impression had led Hawkeye to believe—disappointing, but probably a useful survival instinct. "If you say so, sir," she said, and then added, "I make a point of only ever not getting along with privates."

Breda and Havoc started laughing, and even Brosch chuckled at that. Kohler would fit in just fine, even if her presence meant they'd have to watch themselves a little more closely in the coming weeks. Hawkeye left them to it and let herself into the inner office.

The general lifted his head from his fist when he entered. His posture suggested an absence of diligence, and when she crossed over to his desk and looked down at his paperwork, she said, "Sir."

He followed her gaze down to the doodles in the margins of his report. "Ah," he said. "I'm going to have to burn this one and start over, aren't I?"

"If you insist on leaving alchemical notations on every page, at least write in code."

"It is in code!" he protested.

"In better code, then."

He smirked obnoxiously at her—obnoxious because she was susceptible to it despite knowing the associated dangers. It was a little rueful, though, too; she only ever got that kind of self-aware amusement out of him in private, when he felt free to drop the bombastic act. "But how would you check over my notes?"

"Sir, are you suggesting you can come up with a code I can't crack?" she asked, mostly to see if she could make him laugh.

She could. "Captain, I would never," he said once he had collected himself, and then he pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and began copying the more legitimate portion of his report over. "How's our newest recruit fitting in?" 

"Fine," Hawkeye said. "She's a quick study, that much is obvious. Observant." A second of thought, and then she added, "Young."

"So is Fuery," the general said.

"...Intelligence, though."

"You have a point. Still—"

"I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, but—"

"Spooks make you wary?" 

"Everything makes me wary, sir."

"You're too young yourself for that kind of paranoia," he teased, even though he was the most understandably paranoid person she knew. 

"I'll remember that the next time we discover an ancient plot to turn the country into a blood sacrifice," Hawkeye said. He'd shifted from his report back to the alchemy notes in the margins. No wonder he was in such a good mood. Horror at the state alchemist program aside, he only rarely got to indulge in his first love; she'd always suspected he'd have been perfectly happy puttering around in a laboratory for the rest of his life if his more charitable ambitions hadn't gotten in the way. 

She came around to his side of the desk and spent a moment reading over his shoulder. "Potassium permanganate?"

"With glycerol," he said. She hadn't followed that far, but her education in alchemy had been inconsistent. "As an alternative to ignition gloves."

"Would that work?"

"Maybe. I haven't had a chance to experiment with it yet, but not having to manually create a spark…" He looked back down at the paper and then slumped forward with a grunt. "Sorry. You didn't come in here to listen to me theorize."

"Later," she said. "General Martin will be arriving in two hours—"

"And, at least according to Martin, ten minutes early is twenty minutes late," the general finished. He sighed. "I suppose that means it's time to change."

"Yes, sir." This wasn't precisely a 'dress uniform required' event, but it was certainly a 'dress uniform recommended' event. Hawkeye had gotten up early to clean and press her long skirt, which had collected a staggering amount of dog hair around the hem since its last use. She was already wearing it, having changed while Sergeant Kohler unpacked and settled into her new workstation.

"And figure out how to convince Martin not to make the trip out to Ishval," he added.

"That would probably be best, sir," Hawkeye agreed.

"And meet Sergeant Kohler."

"She should probably know what you look like if she's on your staff, sir."

His teeth glinted when he smirked. "That eager to show me off, Captain?"

"Yes, sir. That's precisely it, sir," Hawkeye said stoically, and was rewarded when he laughed again. He really was in a good mood today, and why shouldn't he be? Fuhrer Grumman had recently celebrated his first anniversary as head of state, they were beginning to gather the number of personnel more typical of a general's office instead of having to rely on a trustworthy few, the reconstruction effort in Ishval was gathering momentum at an astonishing rate, and he'd stolen a few minutes to tinker with his alchemy. It was also spring, the general's favorite season—Hawkeye suspected summer reminded him of the high heat of the Civil War, but he hated the cold of winter. She, more tolerant of cool weather, liked autumn for similar reasons.

"Well, then, I guess I can't disappoint." There was a garment bag draped over the back of one of the armchairs in front of his desk. That was another change from their early days in Eastern; the general now had an office to himself, while his staff occupied the suite immediately adjoining, and although Hawkeye had liked having him immediately at hand (simply because her job as bodyguard was made easier when she could lay eyes on him at all times), there was something to be said for privacy. Of course, she never lingered in his office when the door was closed unless absolutely necessary, propriety being what it was.

"Martin's going to be looking for any excuse to shut us down," she said. "He isn't happy about the reconstruction efforts, although he's done his best not to draw the fuhrer's attention to it."

"Any chance he's after me rather than Ishval itself?"

"Possibly. He's traditional—" The general and his garment bag vanished into the W.C. and shut the door in her face. Hawkeye let out a little sigh and moved closer, raising her voice just enough that he could still hear her. "Very traditional. The sort of commanding officer you'd expect to be threatened by a young upstart."

"I wish I'd met him more than the once," the general said, voice a little muffled. "So you're saying I should, what, play dumb?"

"Mm. Lazy might be better," Hawkeye suggested. "If you can convince him you were only promoted because of your war record, or that now that you've reached a comfortable position you have no interest in climbing further…"

The tap turned on. "Or that I've only made it this far thanks to the competence of my subordinates?"

They played that up a lot, painting the general as an inveterate slacker who was kept in line by his hard-working, slightly shrewish aide and who only made an effort because rank flattered his ego. He was young for a major, much less a general, and determining when he had to display naked ambition and when he had to present a smokescreen of intemperance and when he had to fall back on charisma and when he had to reveal some small measure of his well-disguised capability made for an exhausting life of constant calculation and misdirection. It required hiding what was in plain sight.

"Something tells me that won't work with General Martin," Hawkeye said. "He's uncomfortable with women in power."

"He must love General Armstrong, then." The tap turned off, and there was a faint rustling of cloth. "You're sure? That act usually works on an audience like him."

"Meek would be best for me, I think," Hawkeye said. "Better not to draw too much attention to myself."

"When I'm the—"

 _"General,"_ Hawkeye said oppressively, because she'd anticipated what was coming.

"Uh, anyway—there's going to be a law against that."

"You can't reprimand someone just because they don't respect me, sir."

"Reprimand? Please, Captain, an offense of that magnitude is at least worth a court-martial."  This bon mot delivered, he opened the door.

Hawkeye had never had a weakness for men in uniform. She could, to a certain extent, understand Catalina's tastes—the uniform carried with it a certain weight, an expectation of competence and authority—but on the whole her associations with it were different, and she had no great sympathy and in fact a great deal of distaste for the abuses of the organization that that uniform represented.

There was, however, one exception to her rule. Maybe it was simply that she so rarely saw his hair in any semblance of order, or maybe her weakness was simply for the man no matter what his clothing. Whatever the reason, some internal part of her flinched when the general stepped out of the water closet in full dress blues, hair neatly combed back from his face, smelling of a subtle, masculine aftershave as he threatened legal action against everyone who refused to take her seriously.

Her walls had stood strong for a decade and more, but ever since—

No. Better not to think of that.

"If you say so, General," she said, a beat too late for it to be natural. "Don't forget your coat." She held it out to him, and he took it from her and draped it over his shoulders. 

"Thank you, Captain," he said. "Cold outside for spring."

"It's still early in the season."

"And that north wind," he added. "Have you heard what they call it at Central?"

"No, sir," said Hawkeye.

"A Briggs wind," he said, and then he smirked. "Although not within General Armstrong's hearing, of course."

"Really. I would think she'd appreciate the comparison."

"Probably better not to play the odds when she's around," said the general, who by this point was definitely stalling. "You can never be sure she's not going to take offense and challenge you to a duel. Did you know I once passed her a message hidden in a pot of flowers? I thought she was going to throw them at my face."

Hawkeye lifted a brow.

The general sighed explosively. "Oh, all right," he conceded. "Best to get it over with. Don't act too meek, I might not recognize you."

"Yes, that seems likely," she said. His smirk slid into a grin, and he almost forgot himself and held the door for her. Fortunately, he caught himself in time, and the boyish grin reverted to a smirk as he stepped aside and waited for his subordinate to clear his path.

Hawkeye followed him to Sergeant Kohler's desk. Their newest addition was hunched over a stack of files, her back curved into such a tense hump Hawkeye could feel a cramp shudder down her own spine. Kohler was also so thoroughly absorbed in her work that the general had to clear his throat to catch her attention, and then papers went flying as she scrambled to her feet and flailed about with too-long limbs until she had arranged herself into attention.

"Sir!" she said.

"At ease, Sergeant," he said. "I trust you're settling in?"

"No, sir," she said. "I mean, yes, sir. That is, I'm settling in well. Master Sergeant Fuery left some very… comprehensive notes."

The general chuckled. "That's Fuery, all right. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions, Sergeant—I'd rather my men understand what they're doing, even if they take twice as long to do it, instead of making a fast, sloppy job of their work."

"Thank you, sir," Kohler said. "That's a relief to hear."

"Well it's news to _me,"_ Havoc said. 

"That's because you're always fast and sloppy," the general shot back, and Breda burst out laughing at Havoc's exaggerated wince.

They left shortly after for the meeting with General Martin, trailed by a squadron of four guards. While General Mustang was now of a rank where he didn't have to greet senior staff at the train station, he liked to receive visitors in the Grand Hall at Eastern rather than his offices. Hawkeye, meanwhile, was still adjusting to having those offices be in the main block rather than one of the peripheral buildings; some mornings her feet almost carried her to the suite they had occupied for all those long years before the fight against the homunculi had accelerated what was an already meteoric ascension.

Martin did in fact arrive early—impressive, considering the trains always ran precisely as scheduled. He was not alone.

"General Martin," Mustang said. "And General Browning. What a pleasant surprise."

Browning was one of the 'new guard' promoted from the lower ranks after the culling of the Promised Day. He was also, unfortunately, a fan.

"Brigadier General Mustang!" he crowed. "Honor as always. When Martin here—Martin, look alive—when Martin here said he was taking a tour of Eastern, why, I had to accompany him myself. Not on a lark, wouldn't do for a general to take a trip on a  lark." He winked at Hawkeye. "Damned embarrassing, that would be. But of course maintaining good relations with our eastern post—quite important. Martin! Our host is the Hero of Ishval!"

It was only because of their long history that Hawkeye knew to look for the fine shudder that ran down General Mustang's back. For one split second, every muscle of his body tensed simultaneously; and then he brought himself back under iron control. 

"Yes," Martin said dryly, "he does seem rather fond of that title. Mustang, I hope you're aware this isn't a social call."

"Of course not, sir," the general said. "In fact, I have some rather detailed reports that my staff put together for you to review."

"Reports," Martin said. 

"And the key players in the effort have been collected to give you a chance to speak with them personally, sir," the general added. "In fact, Colonel Miles will be arriving tomorrow morning, and he's my man on the ground. Of course, my staff and I are at your disposal. I took the liberty of reserving some rooms at the Hotel Imperial, although the visiting officials' quarters here at the command center have also been readied for your use."

"Superb!" said Browning. Martin, meanwhile, grunted. He looked like he had smelled something bad, and Hawkeye was suddenly sure that he was the kind of man who hated animals; it made her glad she'd left Hayate at home, even though he got anxious after being cooped up for too long. (She was also, always, aware that this was one of the few ways in which the general felt he was allowed to indulge her—most commanders did not allow their subordinates to bring a pet to the office.)

The general first took his guests on a tour of the command center. "Have to see the digs, eh, Martin?" said Browning, while Martin ran his hand over the railings and doorknobs and even the wallpaper to check for dust. His heavy gold signet ring made a dragging noise as it passed over the furniture, and as a counterpoint to Browning's effusing it was enough to drop a headache right at the base of Hawkeye's skull. 

After the command center, the general showed Martin and Browning the parade grounds. Colonel Colt had assembled her men in neat rank-and-file, and they gave a good showing while Browning gushed about their obvious discipline and Martin pointed out a private who was out-of-step. Then they met the state alchemists who were on-site that day, while Browning praised the majesty of alchemy and Martin pointed out the lack of useful military innovation from Eastern's alchemy labs. Finally they were led to a conference room, where Browning distracted them all by badgering the general for stories of his heroism and Martin pointed out that the Hero of Ishval was little more than a long-range flamethrower. "He can't do anything that our Amestrian technology can't do better," Martin concluded.

"Of course not, sir," said the general, perfectly straight-faced. "That's why I have a full team of my soldiers equipped with flamethrowers. It saves me the trouble of having to go out into the field myself."

"You're too reliant on your men, Mustang," said Martin. "A good officer leads from the front, not the rear. And if all your soldiers are so..." He cast a doubtful look at Hawkeye, who was so bored with everything about him that it was all she could do not to walk out of the room to deal with one of the hundred problems that actually did require her attention. 

"Lauded?" Browning suggested.

"A woman for your head of staff is certainly some kind of statement to make," Martin said. "As a secretary, perhaps, but as your proxy, it leaves much to be desired."

"Quite the looker, though!" Browning said. "Man of Mustang's reputation, well, I say who could blame him!"

Martin maintained his stern expression as he turned away to examine a picture frame. "Precisely."

General Mustang twitched. After a moment of silence, during which Martin examined the wall hangings and Browning studied an Ishvalan sculpture (purchased at a more-than-fair price from a regional artist), Hawkeye stepped on his foot.

"Captain Hawkeye is more than competent—"

Hawkeye stepped a little harder.

"But I can't pull one over on your gentlemen, can I?" he added, and managed to produce a wink for Browning. Browning roared with laughter. Martin scowled. Hawkeye made a note on her clipboard to extend the proposal deadline for the improvements to Ishval's irrigation system. She'd recently heard about a civil engineering firm near Dublith that specialized in agricultural projects. They hadn't been included in the initial request-for-bid because they were a small, family-owned operation, but if they were willing to take on the job, they might make for a better fit than the current front-runner. Although, of course, the final decision was in the hands of Scar and the Ishvalan councilors.

"On that note, Mustang," said Martin, "why is it we aren't being offered a tour of Ishval?"

Hawkeye would've told Martin that the entire area was already in too much flux to entertain a bigoted old goat who only wanted leverage to hold it over a rival's head, which was why she was better suited for behind-the-scenes work while the general conducted the main show. "Ishval's conditions are still primitive, sir," he said, and even though she knew it was coming, she had to fight the urge to flinch. It played on Martin's prejudices, but entertaining and even perpetuating that attitude revolted her. 

"Interesting." Martin clicked his ring against the back of a chair. "I thought your argument was that Ishval was now a part of Amestris and should be treated with the dignity that all of our country's citizens deserve. I doubt the foundation of that argument, but according to your own standards, the reconstruction seems to be less than successful."

"It's a work in progress."

"Danger behind every door?" Browning interrupted. "Say no more, Mustang! Plenty to keep us busy in Easy City. Hear the dining is excellent."

"Quite," said Martin. "We'll convene tomorrow at 0800 to discuss those… reports. I expect punctuality, Brigadier General." 

"Of course, sir," said the general, and he waited while Browning, crowing all the while, ushered Martin out the door as a flight of attendants scrambled behind them.

"I want eyes on them at all times," he said as soon as they were out of earshot. "And make sure Colt knows to stick to more conventional exercises—no midnight war games, no civilian emergency drills."

"I'm not sure I can do all of that, sir," said Hawkeye, coming to stand at his side. 

He glanced over at her, startled. "What?"

"It's just that I'm already so busy looking decorative, General."

The tension that had been gathering all day went out of him in a rush, and Hawkeye felt her own shoulders relax in response. "Please, Captain—if one of us is here purely for decorative purposes, we both know it's me."

They watched together as Martin and Browning reached the end of the long hall and vanished around a corner. 

"He's a piece of work," said Hawkeye.

"They both are," said the general. "This is going to be a hell of a week."

-

Hawkeye spent the rest of the afternoon and the early evening settling Colt, helping Breda put together a situation update for Miles, drafting a letter to Enfield Engineering in Dublith, overseeing a training meeting, coordinating with the Intelligence Division and the military police on the report of an information leak, receiving her daily news brief from one of her lieutenants, and going over the quarterly budget with the resource management office. She met once more with the general at the end of the day, to finish passing along any information he needed to know.

Through it all she fought against a noxious, grinding cloud of anger that never dissipated but only grew thicker; there were no windows to open, no way to air her thoughts out, because always there would be obstacles like Major General Martin who thought they had the right to rip everything Mustang had achieved with Ishval to shreds. She wasn't arrogant enough to believe that either she or her commanding officer, who were mere coordinators and guardians for the Ishvalan leadership's efforts, had any right of ownership to their current successes, but in the two years since the homunculi had been thwarted, they'd witnessed tremendous progress towards restoring the Ishvalan holy land. 

There was a real infrastructure there again; there were farmlands, markets, clean running water and sanitation, telephone lines and electricity where the Ishvalans wished it and none where they didn't. Functionally if not officially, they had started to govern themselves as an autonomous city-state within the nation of Amestris, and moreover, the refugee settlements across the rest of the country had either been offered the means to move back to Ishval or the support required to improve their living conditions where they were. The general had even, obliquely, quietly, started to lay the basis for Ishvalan representation in the Amestrian government—maybe even the seeds of true self-autonomy. 

It was an effort that was far from complete, of course. There were still whole quarters of the city that were more rubble than building, and outbreaks of anti-Ishvalan sentiment, especially in the west, were frequent. The newspapers were hotbeds of conflicting opinion. The turning point, honestly, had been the support of the railroad companies; eight months ago Central Railways had announced their intention to build a transcontinental railroad connecting Amestris to Xing, and, thanks to a careful, covert lobbying campaign, they had decided that the major point of departure would be Ishval.

None of this was a guarantee that the general would achieve his goals, of course. Armstrong still had her eye on Grumman's seat, and Grumman himself was showing no signs of retiring. Military recruitment was up thanks to an aggressive advertising campaign; Hawkeye disapproved of the tactic, but she was aware that in a country in which the military was as thoroughly integrated into society as it was in Amestris, a sudden dissolution of that military would wreak more havoc than its prolonged existence. And there was an alarming surge of nationalist sentiment, a 'rally round the flag' mentality that had sprung up in the wake of Bradley's betrayal…

Her head was still fogged when she left the office for the night. She lived ten blocks away, in a row house—far more luxurious quarters than she usually permitted herself, since she'd never shaken the frugality that had served her so well in childhood despite an increasingly generous salary, but the house came with one necessary amenity: a small yard. 

She paid one of her neighbor's sons to walk Black Hayate on days when she couldn't take him to work, but he invariably met her at the door when she returned home. That was her priority after shutting the door behind her—the first thing Riza always did was greet her dog. 

"Sit," she said, and he sat down with a thump, his tail wagging back and forth so hard it beat an audible tattoo against the baseboard. "Good boy," she said, and his ears pricked up. Riza studied him for a minute, making sure he would wait, and then she knelt down. He flew over to her, panting like a locomotive, and buried his head against her shoulder. "That's right," she said, "good boy," and he whined and licked the side of her neck and danced back and forth like he was wagging his whole body.

She spent a long moment with her face pressed into his short fur, and then she sighed, rose to her feet, made sure the door was locked, and put away her service weapon. Her uniform came off next; she unclipped her hair after removing her jacket, and then she pulled off the black shirt she wore underneath before toeing off her boots and trousers and retrieving her robe. After that she drew a bath. By the time it was full she had let Hayate out in the yard, changed his food and water, sorted through her mail, stacked her remaining daily newspapers on the kitchen table to read later, and let Hayate back in.

When she finally settled into the hot bathtub, though…

Her routine immediately after getting home provided a small but crucial insulation. She didn't have much by way of a personal life, being wed to her work as she was, and other than a few friends like Rebecca, her off-hours consisted of quiet time spent alone, walks with her dog, and the occasional night out with her coworkers. Part of her ruthlessly insisted that she didn't deserve any time off at all, but her pragmatic side recognized that without some measure of balance, she wouldn't be effective at her job. She had no right to lay down her burdens, but neither did she have the right to self-flagellation, nor, it followed, to self-neglect.

But that smoky cloud of frustration was still there. No, it wasn't quite frustration—it was an impending awareness. She'd felt it before; even in peacetime, even off-duty, even in the sanctuary of her own bathroom, that sniper's instinct was too strong to overlook. Someone or something was out there, waiting, and Riza wasn't sure if it was friend or foe.

The general wasn't making it any easier on her. Since their move back to Eastern—maybe even before that—her awareness of him was spiraling higher and higher by the day, until now it was a tightly-wound, tangled mass that sat like a knot in her throat at all times. The sensitivity that had once been painful was now excruciating. And she wasn't used to having to concern herself with it—her feelings for the general had always been there, unstated, untended, growing in the dark like something dank and useless, but they had never demanded her attention. Riza didn't waste time thinking about romance or what lay behind it unless she was in Rebecca's company, or at least she hadn't until… well. That was the problem.

Maybe it was just that she knew what his hands felt like on her now. Not in a sexual way, or not in an explicitly sexual way, but late at night in a hospital room after he had regained his eyesight, Riza had woken up in her bed to the sight of him standing in the window. She had crossed the room to stand beside him. The moon was hanging low and pregnant in the sky, and in the dim silver light he had turned to her and cupped her face in his hands and tipped his forehead against hers. It was the most startlingly intimate thing she had ever experienced other than killing a man.

After her shock and a deep shuddering breath, she had started to protest, because neither of them had ever crossed the bridge she had only recently started to believe was two-way, but then he had said the one thing that could make her still. _"Lieutenant,"_ he had said, _"if you care for me, let me have this moment,"_ and Riza had shuddered again and quieted, and they had spent a long, unearned minute merely looking their fill.

And now that memory, like her anger, was clouding her mind and her purpose; or maybe it _was_ her anger, echoing in a chamber filled only with the knowledge that he had used what she wanted against her to give her a gift she could never refuse. There would always be men like Martin, but there was only one man like Roy Mustang.

"If Grandfather could see me now," she told Hayate, who was sleeping on his back on the bathroom tile with all four feet in the air. "Or Rebecca," she added. Hayate sneezed. Maudlin—that was how she was feeling. Or morbid, maybe. Unlike herself. It was that fog in the air, obstructing her vision, but Riza had sense other than sight.

She scrubbed herself down, drained the bathtub, and dressed in her pajamas and bathrobe. On cool nights like tonight, she often built a fire in her small fireplace, and once she'd done so, she sat down on a chair pulled close to the hearth to encourage her hair to dry and opened her first paper. Hayate managed to burrow himself in against her thigh, and she stroked his head as she skimmed the headlines. She read three papers every morning before breakfast, but even the Central Times, the East City Dispatch, and the newly restored Gunja Daily weren't enough to paint a comprehensive picture of current events.

The sudden pounding on her front door had her on her feet with a revolver in hand before her conscious mind had caught up with her body. Hayate's ears flattened against his skull. Her guest pounded again, and then came the sound of someone fumbling with her doorknob. She crossed into the foyer, leading with her sidearm, but curiously it was Hayate's response that caused her to unlatch the door. As soon as they rounded the corner, his head went up and his tail started, slowly and then with more and more momentum, to wag.

Hawkeye pressed herself against the wall and eased the door open. As soon as she saw who was standing on the other side, she lowered her gun and stepped forward.

"Sir," she started to say, but at that point General Mustang collapsed face-first at her feet. His back was bloody and shredded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From _Beekeeper:_ Roy's back.


	2. Chapter 2

His back hurt like hell. 

There was also a dog licking his face; he waited a minute, and the world started to lose its soft focus, and the blur of black and white in front of him resolved itself into Hayate. So he'd made it to Hawkeye, then.

"You're awake," she said, less stern than she was in front of other people—usually; otherwise implied that she was never stern with him—and more relieved than he'd heard her since the Promised Day. He'd made her worry again.

Roy groaned. "Back hurts like hell. How long was… out?"

"Only a few minutes," Hawkeye said. "Sir, what happened?"

"Bomb," he said. "How bad?"

"You need a hospital—"

"No."

"—But I doubt that would be safe. There's shrapnel. Wood splinters. It needs to come out, although you won't bleed to death any time soon. I'm more concerned about infection."

God, he was tired; the raw ache was starting to go numb, and he could almost just stay here on the captain's hard floor. Unfortunately, she had other ideas. "Can you stand?" she asked.

He groaned again. "Do I have a choice?" 

"No," Hawkeye said. "I can't lift you." But she got a hand under his arm, and helped steady him while he climbed to his feet, and then she led him into the kitchen and left him propped against the wall while she went to get a camping cot. Ah, that was good thinking—he wasn't sure he could manage stairs.

She helped him down onto the cot, too, and held a glass of water to his mouth while he tried to swallow a couple of basic painkillers. Then she got to work cutting through his uniform jacket and the shirt underneath. He hadn't thought to put on a coat to conceal the injury; in fact, he hadn't been thinking at all. One minute he was in the backyard exploring the limits of alchemy sans transmutation circle, and the next he was staggering down an alley, driven only by one reflex, one urge that was too deeply-seated to be called a thought: _Get to Hawkeye._

"Were you followed?" she said.

"I… ah, I'm not sure." The admission came through gritted teeth. Frankly, he was hurting too much to even reprimand himself for the oversight, and that was a rare state, maybe even an enjoyable one. It was also possible he was in shock, or that he had a concussion; he wouldn't rule out either.

She paused for a moment, and then he felt gentle fingers on his wrist as she checked his pulse. "Good," she said. "I have to flush everything first. This is going to hurt."

He wasn't sure if she was using vodka or isopropyl alcohol or some other clear liquor, but the splash against his back blew away the numbness and brought every last nerve-ending back to life. It was like being burned alive—a flash-burn, fast and hot, ten seconds before the flame snuffed itself out—and then it was gone.

Hawkeye must've said something, because he heard, "—targeting you," and then, "Sir?" and then, "General!"

"Not sure," he ground out, and Hawkeye's hand settled just for a heartbeat on the back of his neck.

"Stay with me," she said, and then she started with the tweezers. "You have a lot of cloth in here," she added, "and that's what worries me. We need a doctor or else you'll go sceptic—"

"No," Roy said again. 

She dropped three more shrapnel shards in a dish— _tink, tink, tink_ —before she said anything else. "I agree that it's better not to trust anyone, but I won't take a risk with your life."

Suddenly it seemed imperative to explain to her that taking a risk with his life, with their lives, was exactly what they would be doing if they brought in _anyone_ at this point—that, quite honestly, he shouldn't even be here, because there was a more than passing chance that he'd led whoever had planted that bomb right at her door. He started struggling to his elbows to tell her so when she pinned him down by the shoulders. "Stay still, don't try to—we can talk about it later, General, but you need to _stay still_ —"

He gasped and sank back to the cot.

"That's it," she said, "easy," like she'd soothe a startled horse. Her voice was a little low for a woman and sweet, he'd always thought so—

"...Promoted," she was saying. _Tink, tink, tink._ "We went to Central for his wedding. I wasn't planning on attending, but you told me you thought I should go. Do you remember?"

"You…" He had to stop, pant, and work some moisture back into his mouth. "You never take time off."

"Something I'm sure you know nothing about," Hawkeye said drily. _Tink, tink._ The rhythm broke as she worked carefully around what he suspected was a scrap of fabric. "So I went to buy something to wear and find a gift that Gracia would like, and when I got back to the office, there was a ticket waiting in an envelope on my desk. First class on a luxury train. How much did that cost you?"

"Thirty thous..."

"Thirty thousand cenz." _Tink._ "I'm not sure I ever thanked you for that."

"You—did. At the wedding."

"Did I?" Hawkeye asked. _Tink, tink._ "We didn't see much of each other. You were busy with your duties as best man, and I was catching up with one of my classmates." He hadn't heard her say so many consecutive sentences about anything other than their work in what felt like half a decade, but the distraction was doing the trick. And the memory—he couldn't have taken her to the wedding, but at least he could treat her to something she wouldn't have wasted money on herself. 

"We danced together."

 _Tink._ "I remember," said Hawkeye.

"Just once."

"Just once." _Tink, tink, tink._ "It was a beautiful day. They were both so—" She cut herself off; always so ruthless, his captain. "That's the worst of it. You need stitches in five… no, six places."

"Do it."

"Just a moment," she said. "You're shivering. I'm going to build up the fire first." She went to work feeding logs into her pot-bellied stove, and soon the kitchen was blazing with a heat Roy probably would've found uncomfortable if he could stop shivering. "I can give you something to drink," she offered.

"No," he said. "Better not. I won't—" He had to break off for a moment, and then he gathered his breath and started again. "I won't take the risk. If they come after me here…" If what? He couldn't hold on to the end of it. Hawkeye was tilted in his vision, at right angles to how he normally viewed her. She was rolling up the sleeves of her striped pajamas.

"Lieuten'nt," he muttered. "Sorry. It seems I… worried you again."

She knelt down beside him and put the back of her hand against his forehead. Her face was tight with concern, but she said, "Hush. Worry about yourself," and then the world tilted again and went dark, and he slept through all twenty-three stitches she put in his back.

-

When he woke up, his back felt worse and his head felt better. The room was sweltering, and there was a thick blanket spread across his legs. After a lot of effort, he managed to sit up and swing his feet to the floor. He was working from some place beyond adrenaline.

Hayate was laying just inside the kitchen door. His mistress was asleep at the table, her head down, one hand curled near her face, with a pistol laid out in front of her. There was a streak of blood on the inside of her forearm that she must've missed in her exhaustion.

Roy disliked a lot about his life right now, but what he disliked most was the thing he was about to do next.

"Captain," he called. When she didn't stir, he said, more sharply, "Captain!" and Hawkeye blinked awake.

"Sir?" she said, and then the fog of sleep lifted and she bolted upright. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," he said, and then somehow despite sitting totally still he manage to pull against the scabs and stitches. "Ng. Maybe better with some of those pills."

Hawkeye fetched him a glass of water and then rationed four of her mild painkillers into his hand. He drank the whole glass down in one draft, set it down on the table, and said, "You have to go to the office today."

Her eyes narrowed. "Because there's some vital piece of information you need me to collect before escorting you to a safe house?" 

"Because we can't let Martin suspect anything," he said. "I'll be back by tomorrow, but in the meantime, make whatever excuses you deem necessary. Let him think I'm hungover—let him think I'm being treated for syphilis, if that's what he buys."

He could actually see her choosing to ignore the various compound stupidities of his plan, although he knew they would come up again sooner rather than later. "Are you saying General Martin is involved?"

"I'm not saying anything," Roy said. 

"And how exactly are you proposing to keep someone bombing your house a secret?"

Think. You're an alchemist, _think._ "It was a small bomb," Roy said slowly. "Localized. I doubt there's any external damage, and at that time of night…"

"Your neighbors would have heard."

"Maybe, but that's easy enough to excuse," he said. "A gas leak. An experiment gone wrong. You'll have to go by the house and check that it's locked."

"Check to make sure your house is still standing after someone tried to assassinate you, lie to a superior officer, and then make sure your bandages are thick enough that no seepage from your life-threatening injury leaks through to stain your coat," Hawkeye said. "Very good, sir." The perfect balance of her condescending, deferential formality had been honed by a decade as his head-of-staff, but she'd always had a blunt tongue. 

Also, he'd probably deserved that. 

"Do you have a better plan?" Roy asked. This entire week was spiraling rapidly out of control—one minute the worst thing he had to worry about was a visit from a stuffy, out-of-control superior who might try to derail Ishval's reconstruction but who would have little chance of succeeding (thanks the fuhrer, although Roy was always careful to keep in mind that Grumman had his own agenda that no doubt accounted for but did not prioritize the Ishvalans), and the next he was injured and hiding. Although Hawkeye's house was a terrible hiding place; anyone smart enough to build a bomb would be smart enough to figure out that he'd run straight to Hawkeye.

"I'll have the bomb site examined," Hawkeye said. "I can stall Martin and Browning for a day, but…" She sighed. "You're right, two days would be pushing it. It might be prudent to release news of the attack—it's going to get out sooner or later. We should at least try to control it. We can say you were out drinking and imply you took a room to sleep off your… indiscretions."

"Don't do anything yet. We need more information first."

"You aren't staying alone," Hawkeye said. "I want eyes on you around the clock."

That was less than ideal, but there was no point in arguing with her. "Fine."

"We should move you somewhere else."

"A good point," Roy conceded, "except for one thing."

A beat. "What's that?"

"I'm not entirely sure I can stand up."

But Hawkeye just gave him the look—the one that said he was already stupid enough for coming here in the first place, that she'd already allowed him nearly seven hours of respite, and that he was leaving for somewhere less obvious if she had to throw him over her shoulder and carry him there herself.

Thirty minutes later, Roy, Black Hayate, and a stack of newspapers were being bundled into a car driven by Breda, who took them on a roundabout route to a bolt-hole maintained by Madame Christmas should she ever need to retreat to East City. Tim Marcoh met them there. (Roy wondered just what kind of strings Hawkeye had pulled to drag the doctor out of his home.) He examined her work and pronounced it passable before changing the dressings and administering something stronger than the kitchen-cabinet painkillers she kept on hand. By the end of the ordeal, Roy was shaking and exhausted and hating that he was showing so much of it. He fell asleep immediately, and for once he was so tired that not a single dream woke him.

-

"Seriously? We don't have any clue who might be gunning for him?"

"Inconclusive. We can determine a little about the bomb itself. As for who planted it…"

"Yeah, well, I have a couple of guys going through his public correspondence again, just to make sure nobody decided to follow up on an idle threat. Nothing so far. You check with Intelligence?"

"Discreetly."

"And?"

"Nothing."

"Think it's got something to do with Ishval?"

"It always has something to do with Ishval."

"...Hey, Hawkeye, you holdin' up okay? It can't have been easy on you, seein' him come crawling to your door with one foot in the grave."

"It's never easy on any of us when someone targets him."

"Yeah, but…"

"I want to take it to the MPs as soon as possible."

"You're bringing in outsiders?"

"I don't see any other options. I know someone who will keep the investigation quiet. We still have to figure out how to play it, though—he needs to be in a hospital—"

"But it might be better not to let on how bad he was hurt." That was Havoc. A low whine—Hayate. 

"That's what I don't understand," Hawkeye was saying. "If this is supposed to be a warning or a political statement, someone should be trying to take credit."

"No way it's random, though," Havoc said. "Did you really think Martin might have...?"

"Maybe. I doubt it, but better not to give him the immediate opportunity to finish the job if he is."

"Yeah, well, either way, the boss isn't exactly low-profile. We'll just have to stay at it."

Hawkeye sighed. "I can't decide how we should play it," she admitted. "We could pretend the general wasn't anywhere near the attack—"

"What, you mean pretend something else triggered the bomb?"

"I mean a cover story. He suggested a gas leak or an alchemy experiment gone wrong."

"Why wouldn't he have been home, though?"

There was a creak as one of them leaned back in a chair. "Let's say he was out at a club. It shouldn't be hard to obtain a witness or two willing to say they saw him at… what's the name of that bar he likes?"

"The Lantern Light. You know, it's pretty devoted of him to spend all that time out drinking _just in case_ he ever needs an alibi," Havoc said. "Which I guess means the other option is to go public with the full story."

"Or most of it," Hawkeye said. "I agree with the general—"

"Big surprise."

Roy mentally filled in the pause that followed with one of Hawkeye's glares. "I agree with the general that it's probably not a good idea to advertise how badly he was hurt."

"How are we supposed to manage that?" Havoc demanded. "He should be in the hospital. It'll be weeks before his back is better, maybe longer."

"He'll manage," said Hawkeye. That was his captain—always the stoic.

"He needs morphine."

"No. We can't risk it."

"Riza. Even the bastard has limits. You can't expect him to pull himself together enough to go back to work yet. As far as 'advertising' goes, forget it, every time he moves people are going to know that he's in pain."

"He'll manage because he has to manage," said Hawkeye. "There are a limited number of reasons someone would attack the general. Either they disagree with his ideology and the work he's trying to do, or they're motivated by revenge, or they want to intimidate him into complying with their demands to clear their own path to the top. We're close enough to him that we sometimes forget how he must look from the outside. He's young. A war hero—doubly over, now. A state alchemist. He has the ear of the fuhrer. He's a threat."

"Smart, ambitious, handsome?" Havoc ticked off.

"Charismatic, yes."

Havoc snorted. "That wasn't what I said, but forget it. I still have a hard time believing someone trying to climb the ladder could want him out of the way enough to plant a bomb at his house. There's too many other variables when it comes to rank-and-file advancement."

"Which is another avenue to pursue," said Hawkeye. "There aren't many people capable of building a bomb that sophisticated. The trigger was a trip-wire. It was actually out back, in his garden; he must have been turning away from the shed where the bomb was planted when it went off."

"I still have no idea how none of his neighbors noticed."

"One of them did," Hawkeye said. "He was already gone by the time she came to investigate. She's been asked to keep quiet, but I have someone watching her just in case."

"A bomb as a warning shot, though? I still think they were trying to kill him."

"Maybe."

"Which brings us right back to the beginning. He's got to rest. You can't just pitch him back out into the fight without allowing him a little time to recover."

"This isn't isolated. Nobody is going to go to the trouble of bombing him and not follow-through. If we're lucky, we bought ourselves a few days. We can't waste them."

"What if we pretend it did kill him?"

"If Martin weren't here, maybe, but he'd almost certainly be moved into place as temporary commander, and you know the first thing Martin would do—"

"He'd wreck our efforts in Ishval."

"Yes," said Hawkeye. Roy wished he could see her face. Her tone of voice was unhappy. He made her unhappy far too often. 

"There has to be another way," Havoc was saying. "None of this is good for anything if he kills himself in the process. You know that we don't have a chance in hell without him, and he'd drive himself off a cliff if he thought his damn crusade demanded it."

"No," said Hawkeye. "There's no other way. We can't risk it."

Havoc swore. "Have a heart! Look at him, he starts bleeding all over again any time he moves. If his back gets infected—"

Havoc cut himself off. Well, that was a first. Roy was dazed, but not so dazed he didn't recognize a miracle when he heard one. His senses seemed to be coming and going at the same time; he was either swimming underwater, or he was caught in a bad dream.

"Riza," Havoc said. If Roy weren't so concerned by what that tone meant (it meant Hawkeye was distraught), he'd have felt jealous of how gentle it was. "Hey. Come on, I didn't mean—"

"It's fine."

"No, I know—I just forget, sometimes, what he means—"

"He's my commanding officer," said Hawkeye, whose voice was not gentle. "And a man whose ideals I respect."

"Riza, you don't have to pretend—"

"I'm not pretending anything," said Hawkeye, ruthless to the very last.

There was quite a long pause, punctuated only by what might have been the thump of a cane, and then he said, "Huh."

"Is that all?"

"Al told me," Havoc said. Roy had lost the thread of the conversation entirely. "About that evening in the lab, after Lust... well, you know." His cane rapped against the floorboards again. He didn't carry it often, but sometimes, when he was off-duty, he'd grumble his way through using it as an aid. "How you thought Mustang was dead."

"Havoc. Don't."

"Look, I know nothing is going on. You're both stiff all over with honor, and I doubt either one of you would jeopardize your goals like that, but I know and it's fine."

Roy couldn't think around the pain in his head. It wasn't even throbbing; instead, it was constant, a relentless storm that howled away between his ears. The storm didn't even touch his back, although that he didn't so much feel as anticipate feeling in a way that amounted to total paralysis. The only other thought that registered was that Hawkeye was unhappy. He couldn't decide if Havoc was comforting her or making her unhappier, but it seemed important that he work out which it was.

"Havoc," Hawkeye said. "Jean. We aren't going to talk about this."

"Sure," Havoc said.

"You're my closest friend after Rebecca. Don't mistake me: I appreciate having someone I trust who knows me so well."

"I'm not trying to make you admit anything. All I'm saying is that it's okay."

"We aren't talking about this," Hawkeye said again.

"Is that really what you want? No, hey, look at me—forget about him for a minute, he'd have a ring on your finger the minute you dropped a hint."

"No," said Hawkeye, "he wouldn't. Because he respects me to make my own choices, and because he knows that any sacrifice we make to restore Ishval is only a small token against the monumental destruction that we—not just we as Amestrian soldiers, but we _personally_ —caused during the war."

"Well shit," said Havoc.

"He's my commanding officer," Hawkeye repeated, "and a man whose ideals I respect. My mission is to watch his back, and to shoot him in it if he strays from this path. And _that is all."_

"...You two are really something," Havoc said, wondering. "I bet you haven't even talked about it, have you?" He snorted. "So what? You're never going to get married? Or have a family? I know you like kids."

"Of course I'm free to marry if I meet the right person," said Hawkeye.

"And so is he?"

A pause. "And so is he."

"But you aren't gonna, are you?" Havoc said. "I know you want to tell me it's none of my business, but you just admitted I'm your friend, so good luck there. You're pretty damn single-minded."

"I have nothing more to say."

"Okay, sure," said Havoc. "I can tell you about my rotten luck with women if it'd make you feel better," he added.

Very dryly, Hawkeye said, "I already know too much about your rotten luck with women."

"Ha!" And then: "Damn. I thought I was a romantic."

"I meant it, Havoc," said Hawkeye. "We won't be speaking of this again."

"At least not until the next time you've gone fifty hours without sleep," Havoc teased. "Listen, I get it, I'm a safe bet—I'm one of his chess pieces, and I know some of what you two have been through. If you do need to talk... well, I'm here."

"...Thank you," said Hawkeye.

"You got it. Hell, I owe you." There was an unspoken suggestion there about Hawkeye's friend with the dark hair. Roy was so glad she had friends; she'd been so lonely as a girl. Not easy to take advantage of, but still both wary of and desperate for connection.

A rustle. "We can break the suspects into categories to help us identify individuals," Hawkeye said. "Internal—within the military." This was followed by the sound of a pen scratching across paper. She was obviously unwilling to linger any longer on personal matters. In fact, if Roy had the presence of mind to do calculations, he'd be able to add up how many years it had been since he'd last heard her speak so much about herself.

"Political?" said Havoc. "Uh, that's a pretty big category."

"Personal," said Hawkeye.

"You mean someone hates him just for being him?"

"I meant that someone motivated by revenge might be targeting him," said Hawkeye, "but essentially, yes."

"So someone in the military, someone with political aims, or someone who's pissed off at him for other reasons. Gee, that really narrows it down." A scuffling noise, then a clink. Tea? Coffee? Roy was so tired. "Hey, you don't think..."

"What is it?"

"What about alchemy?" said Havoc. "The boss is the only one who uses flame alchemy, right? What if they're, I don't know. Trying to get answers out of him. Pretty fucked-up way to do it, but every alchemist I've ever met has been off their rocker."

"It's possible." Hawkeye sounded reluctant. "There's a fascination with flame alchemy in certain circles."

"I never got why it's such a big deal," said Havoc. "Yeah, it's flashy, but is it really that hard for someone else to figure out how to use it?"

"Yes," said Hawkeye. "Even the few people who have managed to work out the theory aren't able to apply it. He's the only one."

"You sure about that?"

"It requires control and willpower," said Hawkeye, "and a thorough grounding in the subject, and the ability to perform complex calculations on the fly. The only other person I've met who I would suspect is capable of the necessary transmutations is Edward Elric."

"That little runt," said Havoc, and then he laughed. "I guess that says it. The kid's a genius. Hey, you know a lot about it. Ever think about becoming an alchemist, Hawkeye?"

"Never," Hawkeye said, and then sleep dragged Roy under once more.

-

He was more cogent the next day. "It's Thursday night," Hawkeye said. "A little over twenty-seven hours have passed."

Roy groaned and levered himself upright, a process that took years (off his life, at any rate) and left him feeling like all he wanted to do was lie back down again. "Who's here?"

"Only me for the time being," she said. "Havoc and Breda took their turns earlier."

"How's the syphilis?" he managed to say. 

It took her a minute to puzzle out his reference, and then she scowled so ferociously he almost apologized. "Your _back_ is healing adequately," she said. "Which means you aren't infected and nothing is currently bleeding."

He was still a little fuzzy, because the third question he asked was, "How are you?"

The scowl softened minutely. "I'm fine, sir," she said, and as always, it was the 'sir' that snapped him back to himself. He put his face in his hands for just a moment and then stood up. It wasn't the hardest thing he'd ever done; but it was difficult.

"Give me a moment in the washroom, Captain, and then I'll want a full report on the situation," he said.

"Yes, General," said Hawkeye. 

He had to keep one hand on the wall all the way to the washroom, so unsteady was his balance, but at least his head had cleared a little. He'd had such strange dreams of Hawkeye and Havoc and of going to Central for the first time. This was worse than being hungover. Maybe not as bad as having to sear his own side shut, though.

It occurred to Roy that he needed to recalibrate his scale for pain against standards that were a little less ridiculous.

"General?" Hawkeye called through the door. "Are you all right?"

 _Fine_ , he said, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm fine, Captain!"

He looked like hell, but that was easily fixed. He washed his face, hunted around as much as his limited mobility would allowed for a comb, and finally settled for running his fingers through his hair. The final effect was not at all rakish, and the rest of his effort was ruined by the permanent line of pain across his forehead.

"Keep an eye on that, old man," he advised the mirror, and then he let himself out and made his way to the table in the middle of the room. As far as his aunt's bolt-holes went, this one ranked somewhere near the top in terms of austerity. There was a cot along one wall with a plank bench at right angles to it, along with a plain table that rubbed elbows with three racks of clothes. At least there was the washroom, which managed to incorporate a sink, a toilet, and a shower, however small.

"What's the story, Captain?" he asked Hawkeye. She looked almost as bad as he did—in terms of exhaustion; broadly speaking, Hawkeye never looked _bad._ She was still in her uniform, but her hair was down around her shoulders and looked lank. Hayate was napping at her feet, which brought him at least a little comfort.

"We aren't sure," she admitted. He could tell she wasn't happy about it. "The bomb was planted in the shed behind your house. It was triggered by a trip wire—"

"So the bomber didn't have to be present at the site."

"Exactly," said Hawkeye. "It was a sophisticated piece of work, as far as we could tell. Breda is working up a list of suspects. There aren't many people who can build something like that."

"That we know of."

"That we know of," she allowed. There was a stack of newspapers on the table beside her, and three glasses with a pitcher of water. Roy helped himself, although his back protested any time he lifted his arms. "One of your neighbors came over to investigate. As far as she knows, you stored several volatile chemicals in your makeshift lab too close together."

"Hence the explosion?" said Roy. He wasn't exactly thrilled at that cover, since his reputation was that of a precise if not terribly broad alchemist, but he'd spread worse stories about himself. Anyway, it might come in handy. He'd gotten himself out of a tight spot or two when his opponent had assumed the only thing they had to fear was fire even though Roy's education was as broadly-rounded as any of the state's dogs.

"Yes, sir," said Hawkeye. "At this point, I suspect we're looking for a third party—someone who hired the bomber—although we can't rule out the possibility that the bomber acted alone." She counted out a few pills from a bottle and put them in front of him. "Here, take these. I'll change your dressings in just a moment."

Roy swallowed his pills obediently. "Speaking of the suspect, any leads?"

"None," Hawkeye said. "I was hoping you'd have an idea, actually."

He drained his glass. Now that he was up, his stomach was starting to make itself known. How long had it been since he'd eaten? At least a day. "Was Doctor Marcoh here?" he asked.

"Yes," said Hawkeye. "I'm surprised you remember that. He said you might be concussed."

"Aren't you supposed to wake someone with a concussion every hour?"

"No," said Hawkeye.

"Are you sure?" said Roy.

"Yes." She was losing patience. "The suspect?"

"Right," Roy said. "I can't think of anyone other than the immediately obvious. For all we know, it could be random."

"I don't think there's a chance of that, General," Hawkeye said.

Something he had wondered—did she ever think of him as Roy?

There was a dangerous line of thought. "No, you're probably right. Sorry—still foggy. What did you tell Martin?"

"That you were busy with a pressing confidential matter," Hawkeye said. "Havoc implied that you were still drunk from the night before and sleeping it off. I thought about borrowing one of the girls from Madame Christmas, but that seemed too flagrant given how volatile Martin is."

"Good," said Roy. "That's good, I can work with that. Did you tell...?"

"Not yet," said Hawkeye. "It seemed wiser to wait until you were back on your feet and able to... manage the situation." Hawkeye had always been slightly terrified of Madame Christmas, which amused Roy to no end, both because Hawkeye was stuffed to the ears with courage and because Madame Christmas adored her. 

"We'll just have to plow forward," Roy said. "We've found our way in the dark before." Not that any of them liked it, but at least it couldn't be as bad as the last mess they'd fought their way through.

He looked down and abruptly became aware that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Uh," Roy said. It made sense, with the bandages, and... well, all of it, but... "Did you cut me out of my shirt?"

"Except for the bits that were embedded in your skin," Hawkeye said. She'd noticed his discomfort. Did she have to notice everything? "I pulled those out with tweezers."

"Ah," Roy said. "Thank you."

Her eyes gleamed. It was a step up from glassy exhaustion, at least, even if it was at his expense. "My pleasure, sir. We didn't think it was worth the trouble of putting you in another shirt."

"Sensible," Roy said. At least he was wearing pants. Hoping like hell he wasn't blushing, he added, "You said you needed to change the dressings?"

"Yes. It won't be fun," she warned.

"Captain, my mere presence makes anything fun," Roy said, and then he swung himself around so he was straddling the chair. It was a bad decision, but he managed to clamp down on the groan that tried to escape.

Hawkeye sighed. "I suppose you're going to have to get used to that," she said. 

"I can't afford to show any weakness in front of Martin," Roy agreed. "I don't think he has the spine to move openly against me, but if he sees something he can use to leverage me out of Eastern... bad enough I've been out of reach for the past day."

Hawkeye started peeling away the medical tape around the edges of his back. His right side had caught the worst of it, based on the size of the area covered. He was almost glad he couldn't see it. "Good thing you weren't any closer," she said. "And that you weren't facing the explosion. It's bad, but Doctor Marcoh said it's second-degree burns and some shrapnel only."

"It could have been worse—the story of my life."

"You're a pessimist, sir," said Hawkeye. "If I were writing that book, the title would be 'It Could Have Been Better.'"

He was laughing when she did something that make him seize up in pain. The next thing he felt was her hand laying very softly against the nape of his neck. Except for the horrible agony, he'd had a dream like this once. Actually, he'd had several dreams like this.

"Sorry," she said. "That was the worst of it."

"Carry on, Captain," he managed to bite out. Hayate came over and put his head on Roy's knee, which was an appreciated expression of solidarity if not much comfort.

"We'll have to sneak you into the hotel later tonight so you can be seen leaving," she said. Trying to distract him with shop talk. "If we'd been quicker on our feet, we'd have taken you there straightaway, but at the time this seemed more prudent." Roy braced his head and forearm against the back of the chair. "Brosch is cleaning up the debris from the explosion. You'll be able to go home tonight," she continued.

He'd bought a house on the outskirts of the city when he'd been promoted with the rationale that a general should have a house, although privately he was willing to admit that he wanted to live somewhere with enough shelves to hold his entire library instead of having to stick books in corners and closets and kitchen drawers. The house was entirely too big for him, and he was crap at keeping up with the yard, but fortunately when you were a general there were always plenty of junior officers falling over themselves to landscape for you. Roy abhorred general abuse of power but wasn't above small, specific abuses, particularly if they furthered his reputation as someone who took flagrant advantage of the system.

Still. It was a house meant for a family, and no amount of books would fill up the spaces that should be occupied by people. Maybe he needed to get a dog. Or a cat—he'd always been partial to cats, although he wasn't sure what Hawkeye thought of them.

"Should I get a cat?" he asked Hawkeye.

She didn't say anything other than, "Hayate likes cats," because of course he did, that dog was so well-trained he probably held the door for Hawkeye when she was carrying groceries. Her hands were so gentle on his skin. He was struck by the parallel to all those years ago, when Hawkeye had been straddling a chair and Roy had been tending to the burns on her back. Although the parallel wasn't exact; he'd dressed her wounds because he'd inflicted them himself, while Hawkeye was blameless in this whole affair.

"There," she said. "All finished."

"Thank you, Captain," Roy said. He need a minute to collect himself before he could lever himself out of the chair. Hayate whined and retreated to Hawkeye's side when he was dislodged. Their timing wasn't bad; Hawkeye was gathering up the medical supplies and Roy was shrugging into a button-front shirt when someone gave a quick series of knocks at the door.

"Havoc," Hawkeye said at his questioning look. She went over to the door and unlocked it, but her right hand was on her sidearm the whole time. She took her job as his bodyguard a little too seriously for Roy's liking, but that was Hawkeye all over—always a little too serious for her own good, throwing her whole heart into whatever cause was in front of her.

"Hey, boss," Havoc said. "Good to see you upright again."

"Barely," Roy admitted. "Any news?"

"Not really. Parked the car around the corner so we can make our escape. Martin's pissed off, but at least Browning's still eating out of your hand." He stubbed out his cigarette in one of the water glasses and dropped a parcel on the table. "That came for you at the office, Hawkeye," he said. "No worries, I had the bomb guys take a look at it."

Hawkeye, frowning, picked it up and turned it over. It was about the size of a folded blanket, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, and it had Hawkeye's name written in neat copperplate across the top. 

"I haven't heard back from Breda," Havoc said. "He took off a while ago. Chasing something down, but he didn't say what."

"He'll be back before tomorrow," said Roy. If he only had a better contact in Intelligence... there was the new sergeant, but she was a relative unknown. Hughes would've had the whole mattered sorted by now if he hadn't gone and died on Roy. Breda was reliable, though; you could always count on him to turn up with what you needed when you needed it.

Hawkeye was opening her package now, but not before putting the twine on the floor for Hayate to investigate. It was one of her more persistent habits; in relaxed company, she presented anything new to her dog for his gratification. Beneath the brown wrapping was a bundle of folded cloth. She shook the clothes out, and a long walking skirt and neat, tailored top with a high neck revealed themselves.

Hawkeye blinked. "What in the world..."

It was her reaction that set Roy on alert. "Did you order that?" he demanded.

"No," said Hawkeye, and then she checked the tags. "It's in my size, though."

Roy took the top from her. There was a subtle pattern in the fawn-colored fabric—a small circle worked in sandy thread and quartered by a cross. In alchemical symbology: salt. The outfit was admittedly the sort of thing Hawkeye might wear in her off-hours, practical and classic but with a feminine elegance to the cut.

"Sir," Hawkeye said, and the tone of her voice turned his blood so cold he forgot what it felt like to burn.

She was holding out a note. "In the skirt's pocket," she explained, and Roy reached out and took it from her.

 _Captain,_ it began:

_You'll forgive the intrusion, but I noticed you've been in that uniform for well over a day and thought you might appreciate a fresh change of clothes. Please avail yourself of the shower, however small it might be. My next move will wait for another night._

_Yours fondly,_

_A friend_

"We're being watched," Hawkeye said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From _Beekeeper:_ the bolt-hole, the bomb, and the gift of clothes.


End file.
